


A Matter of Colour

by Torytigress92



Series: Star Wars: Bloodhound 'Verse - Artist's Soul, Warrior's Heart [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Hand of Thrawn Duology - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: A blending of Legends!Thrawn and Rebels!Thrawn, Adult Sabine, Aged Up Sabine Wren, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Cheunh Language (Star Wars), Chiss customs, Don't even ask me where this sits on the canon timeline..., EU Canon and Disney Canon Fusion, F/M, I Don't Know Anymore, Imperial Cadet Sabine, Introspective ficlet, It's all Canon Divergent after that, It's just good form after all, Mandalorian Customs, Mandalorian Politics, Mando'a, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Sabine Wren, POV Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo, References to EU!Thrawn, References to Star Wars EU, Sabine and Thrawn bond over art and honour, Spoilers for Season 3 Episode 13 Star Wars Rebels: Warhead, Spoilers for Season 3 Episode 14 Star Wars Rebels: Trials of the Darksaber, Spoilers for Season 3 Episode 15 Star Wars Rebels: Legacy of Mandalore, Spoilers for Season 3 Episode 7 Star Wars Rebels: Iron Squadron, Star Wars: Rebels Era, Star Wars: Rebels Spoilers, The Darksaber, Thrawn is an Officer and a Gentleman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26582875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torytigress92/pseuds/Torytigress92
Summary: Thrawn's hunt for Sabine Wren and the crew of the Ghost begins in earnest.Thrawn considers his erstwhile gia'jida, how far she has come and far she has yet to go; and the greater strategy he is a part of.Sabine remembers their few private moments as she grapples with her future and the destiny she can't escape.
Relationships: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Sabine Wren
Series: Star Wars: Bloodhound 'Verse - Artist's Soul, Warrior's Heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922797
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	1. Mykapo: Euhn Manka Vit

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to reiterate this is a blending of EU!Thrawn and Disney Canon!Thrawn so if he references things you don't understand, I can wholeheartedly recommend reading Timothy Zahn's Star Wars EU Thrawn books, as well as the Disney Canon compliant books as well. Do far more justice to a very complex character than Rebels manages to do.
> 
> Enjoy!

As Konstantine’s image, shrunken and beaten, disappeared from his holoprojector, Thrawn turned to look out at the unprepossessing view from his bridge’s viewports.

Over the planet Mykapo, Konstantine’s light cruiser floated, adrift and leaking fuel and smoke in space, while ahead TIE fighters awkwardly made their way back to the ISD _Chimaera’s_ hangar, their viewports obscured by great globs of vivid paint. In the distance, he could just see the Rebels’ small rescue fleet disappearing into the distance, mere specks against the void of space. They would be making the jump to hyperspace soon.

 _‘Paint bombs… there is only one person I know who would even consider such juvenile tactics…’_ he thought to himself, standing at ‘parade rest’ as he gazed out at the emptiness of space. Which was exactly why they worked. It was almost… ingenious in a way. She had come a long way since her defection from the Imperial Academy on Mandalore.

His erstwhile _gia'jida_ and future wife. Sabine Wren.

It hadn’t previously been confirmed whether Sabine was a member of Phoenix Squadron. Over the years, he had attempted to keep tabs on her, and the last his sources had reported, she was a bounty hunter for hire with the Black Sun syndicate. Clearly, those long-suppressed ideals he had suspected her to possess had been roused to action, and she had chosen a side. A pity it was the one diametrically opposed to his objectives, but once he had her back under his control, he was confident he could make her see sense.

Sabine’s defection, while disastrous for her family’s standing, in reality had had very little negative impact on Thrawn’s own career. Those elements of Imperial society who disliked and distrusted him already saw him as a maverick force in the military, so the fact he was betrothed to a traitor had done nothing to either improve or dispel that image. Those who knew better weren’t the type to care; Thrawn had had nothing to do with the defection and had been pronounced innocent of any collusion. Indeed, he’d been on the other side of the galaxy at the time.

After the Skystrike incident, he had reviewed all available security footage from the Academy. She was good, lithe and as elusive as a shadow, but not even she could evade all the security cameras. She had grown a little since their last physical meeting on Krownest, taller than he recalled, and she carried herself with a confidence born of years fighting to survive. A warrior in fact as well as spirit now. Her hair was darker than he recalled from the few surveillance images ISB had managed to find, but he supposed it necessary in order to fool any cursory inspections by the ISB. She could hardly infiltrate an Imperial facility with her usual…colourful style.

A fact she well knew. And if the increased attacks of vandalism on multiple worlds throughout the Lothal sector were any indication, Captain Syndulla not only knew of his _gia'jida’s_ past association with him, but she was making full use of her insight and creativity in attempting to discomfit him.

In truth, her antics were amusing and an insight into how her own strategic capabilities had grown. From the raw potential he’d seen in her when they were betrothed on Krownest, and glimpsed it growing in her from their infrequent correspondence before her defection, she was becoming a capable military commander.

Of course, once she was back with him, her skill would only grow faster. He’d make sure of it.

“Sir…uh, it appears the TIE fighters have been hit by…uh…” one of his bridge staff hesitated to speak, as Thrawn’s lips compressed tightly.

“Paint bombs,” he drawled coolly, as the bridge officer swallowed hard. “No matter. A mere annoyance. Their autopilots will guide them home safely. Then alert the maintenance crews.”

“Yes sir!” the bridge officer snapped a salute, before turning back to his station as Thrawn uncrossed his hands, striding towards the comms station. In the distance, the Rebels were jumping to hyperspace.

His fingers flying across the console, he transmitted a multiple-frequency message, one he knew **_she_** would receive. And understand, as only she could.

He’d been the one to start teaching her, after all. The language of his people was not for the faint-hearted or for the linguistically challenged, but Sabine had shown herself to be neither across their limited interactions.

 _“ **Ch'ah cart van sir vah, Sabine. Cseah csarcican't cart nan'eah vah tuzir vor, nan'eah vah tuzir vil cat ch'ah, euhn manka vit,** ”_ he spoke quiet but powerfully, ignoring the confused glance of his Communications officer, the musical syllables of his mother tongue falling from his lips like rain.

He knew she’d understand. It was only good form, after all, to issue a warning.

He had her in his sights once more, and he was disinclined to let her go a second time. The hunt was on.

* * *

_“ **Ch'ah cart van sir vah, Sabine. Cseah csarcican't cart nan'eah vah tuzir vor, nan'eah vah tuzir vil cat ch'ah, euhn manka vit,** ”_ Grand Admiral Thrawn’s voice came over the comms, a wide-band transmission that could be picked up by any ships in range. Sabine tried not to tense, or show any sign of awareness, but she knew she failed as Hera glanced at her sharply. She didn’t need the Force to know the others were all glancing at one another with confusion.

While she doubted any of them understood a word of Thrawn’s statement, her name was noticeable amidst those musical syllables. But only she understood what he’d said.

He had taught her a little, after all.

_“I am coming for you, Sabine. There will be nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide from me, little manka cat.”_

A warning and a statement of intent, all at once.

Little manka cat. The name he’d started calling her by in their letters after she’d detailed a particularly satisfying story about her hand-to-hand combat classes at the Academy. Although technically frowned upon, misogyny was alive and well in the upper echelons of the Imperial military, with plenty of Imperial officers clandestinely believing women had no place in a military institution, even if they didn’t dare say it aloud. Added to the infamy of her family name, and Sabine had faced more than her fair share of dares, challenges and tests. And they were just from the instructors.

Her classmates had been even worse.

At least until she handed one of them, an upstart from a lesser clan who thought she’d be easy pickings, his ass several times in the space of an hour. No one challenged her, at least on the sparring mats, after that incident.

She hadn’t been sure if telling Thrawn about the incident would be wise, if he would find it amusing or juvenile, but he’d surprised her by congratulating her on her victory and confiding in her about his own, brief, Academy training and the prejudice he’d faced there as a nonhuman cadet.

“Sabine!” Hera’s short, sharp bark drew her from the past, as she jumped and turned her head to stare at the Twi’lek bemusedly. “You ok?” Hera’s voice turned warm and concerned, turning from commander to mother in an instant.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here,” she sighed, knowing the others would have questions after this. Damn Thrawn for his melodramatic streak.

With a nod, Hera sent the _Ghost_ into hyperspace.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. The Chimaera: Warrior's Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the events of Warhead, Thrawn considers Sabine and his own feelings towards her.

Thrawn watched Kallus’s retreating back through the hazy red holographic projections floating in real-time simulations of their solar orbits, his eyes narrow as he considered the young ISB agent.

He had his suspicions of the man, but as yet, he had no concrete proofs beyond his own theories and several correlating, but conveniently coincidental, facts. It was a common error to twist facts to suit pet theories, instead of theories to suit facts, and that was a mistake he would not commit. The spy hiding within their ranks would be exposed soon enough, when the time was most opportune, and the right events aligned to expose their identity. He only needed to be patient on that front.

Patience was a trait he possessed in abundance. It had served him well during his ‘exile’ before the Empire ‘discovered’ him. It had served him well during his rise through the ranks of the Imperial Navy. It was serving him still as he waited for the right moment to retrieve his _gia’jida_ from the Rebels.

Yet, by the standards of his own people, Thrawn was considered to be the closest thing to an _impatient_ Chiss it was possible to get. It was his relatively impatient nature that had led the Admirals to assign him to infiltrate the Empire in the first place. Better undertaking an assignment that served both his own goals and those of the Admirals’, than making _pre-emptive strikes_ without their blessing.

But that was the difference between a warrior and a politician, he mused. Patience had its uses in battle, but it also risked making a warrior inexcusably reticent to act when the opportune moment came to strike. Like a supernova, such opportunities could be gone within a moment, never to be grasped again.

And then it would be too late.

It was that truth of the warrior’s path the ruling elites of his people didn’t, _couldn’t_ understand. It was what he had led him here, to this moment, this place, and this position on the board.

Now, he just needed to manoeuvre the rest of the pieces to the positions best placed for his strategy. It was one he had adapted, many times, since arriving in the Empire. The first had been after meeting a young cadet by the name of Eli Vanto after his ‘rescue’ by the Empire. The last change had been twelve years ago, after meeting two extraordinary individuals on Coruscant.

It had taken time for trust to be fostered between them, but eventually it had, mercenary and conditional though it might be. But there was one last player missing from their quartet, one that had eluded her part in this grand game for far too long.

Sabine Wren.

He had been less than thrilled by the Emperor’s command to participate in his plans for Mandalore. He had initially believed his nonhuman origins would spare him such onerous duties, but his inclusion hadn’t surprised him in the end. He had detected the hand of a certain dark-haired First Lady in it and so, he had accepted his duty with what good grace he could muster. It could be worse, he’d supposed then.

It was only on meeting his _gia’jida_ that he understood the moves being prepared by the First Lady and her Hound. And the subsequent moves it would allow him to make, in the future. Combined with his Emperor’s directives to expand the Empire’s presence in the Unknown Regions by establishing footholds on the borders of Chiss space, it opened up… significant possibilities.

Possibilities unchanged by her subsequent defection and disappearance for so long. He’d long been planning for her retrieval but her involvement with the Rebels had, in truth, complicated matters too much to intervene when he’d wished to, but soon… soon, he would make his move.

And reclaim his queen from the other side of the board. She had come a long way, but now it would soon be time for her to return to the right side of the board for the endgame that would unite the galaxy.

United against an enemy that would otherwise destroy it.

Thrawn’s eyes roved over the highlighted planets his Infiltrators had surveyed. Ninety-six planets were a significant number, but now he had more data, he could refine his analysis further. It was only a matter of time.

In truth, deducing the location of the Rebel base in the Lothal Sector was not, in fact, necessary to his goal of retrieving Sabine. To accomplish that, he already had the perfect bait to his trap. No, tracking down the Rebels was a necessary use of his time and resources to ensure there was no suspicion of his loyalties to the Emperor. If he abandoned the search too readily, more vicious tongues that Governor Pryce’s would soon be wagging in the wrong ears. And Lieutenant Commander Vanto had always believed he had no grasp of politics.

If he found both Sabine and the Rebel base, it would eliminate the need to set such a trap. She could even be made to conveniently… ‘disappear’ during the fighting, her name placed on the list of the dead, or missing in action. It would be the better outcome to their little game of manka cat and mouse, Thrawn mused. He had a feeling she wouldn’t find it easy to forgive his…manipulation if he was forced to play his final, hidden, card.

Shutting off the projection, Thrawn glanced at Commodore Faro, silently transferring command of the bridge to her before he walked to his office. Once safely inside, shielded from watchful eyes, he went to the large, roughly cut section of wall he’d ordered retrieved from Lothal. On it, displayed in a riotous explosion of bold colour, was the symbol of the Phoenix Squadron, also known as starbirds. In its bottommost corner was a stylised depiction of a loth-cat, grinning ferally up at him as he eyed it dispassionately, before his eye was once again drawn to the magnificent creature rising from the flames of its wings.

Reaching out a hand, he laid it across the starbird’s crested head, the azure blue of his skin standing out against the bold hue beneath it, a stark contrast of ice against fire. It was strangely fitting that she had adopted such a symbol; while time was running out for her Rebel comrades, she would not share their fate. Like the symbol she had painted everywhere in the sector, from Lothal, to Garel, to Oon; Sabine Wren would once again crash in flames of destruction and be reborn from them.

By his side.

Passing his hand across the starbird’s head and neck, in a parody of a caress, Thrawn’s eyes narrowed as he considered that final, imperative goal. While he was reluctant to play his final card, it might be necessary. It would… make their interactions difficult, but he might have no choice but to involve Sabine’s family in drawing her out.

Laying a trap to draw her and her comrades out through some convoluted ploy would only draw unwanted attention, and he had discounted it early on. Sending bounty hunters after her was risky at best, and unlikely to work. She was too formidable a foe to be so easily taken by any mercenary, even bounty hunters trained by Mandalorians.

And that was the crux of the matter: Sabine’s Mandalorian origins, her martial training, made her too dangerous to be approached without insurance to ensure her compliance. If he discovered the location of the Phoenix Squadron’s base, he could use the lives of her comrades as leverage. If he used her family to lure her out…

She would be unlikely to forgive such a transgression. And while ordinarily, such considerations wouldn’t affect his strategy, in this case, it would be inimical to his objectives for her to be rendered permanently hostile and mistrustful of him. Nevertheless, if his analyses proved fruitless, it would be his only recourse.

Family meant everything to Mandalorians. In all his research into their culture, in preparation for his eventual union with one, that had been the clearest observation he had made. Even beyond their attachments to their own traditions, family was the linchpin around which Mandalorian culture revolved. He didn’t believe the rumours about Sabine’s defection being due to her betrayal of her family and running from her duties. No… one thing about Sabine he had no doubt of was her dedication to, and love of, her family. She believed she was _saving_ them by defecting.

The Chiss placed importance on family, but duty to the Ascendency itself came first before all. The Empire had tried to foster similar attitudes, but its methods were flawed under its current leadership. While he had sensed the propensity for seeing the bigger picture in Sabine during their betrothal and correspondence before her defection, she was still blinkered by her loyalty to family above all else.

Once he had her safely under his control, he would bring her to see that the best way to keep her family safe was by his side. And he would be able to resume her training; she had the raw potential to be a great military leader. She would soon get the chance, and she would need to be ready to take her place beside him.

At the head of the Empire of the Hand. Together with the Empire, they would provide a redoubt and the first line of defence from the threats that massed, ever greater, on the fringes of the Galaxy. To his slight surprise, imagining Sabine at his side, resplendent in her Mandalorian armour, commanding one half of the military force that would save the galaxy from ruin, made a shudder tremble through his strong frame. It felt almost like anticipation, but more than that…it felt like _desire_.

When he had consented to the betrothal, his _gia’jida_ had been a girl, a child. He hadn’t looked at her with anything other than a vague sense of protectiveness and interest in how she would grow and develop. Now, she was a woman, young perhaps, but formed and hardened by survival and war. There was a steeliness to her eyes that attracted his fascination, her artistry and creativity an added inducement that aroused his own innate curiosity, his desire to understand everything about a culture, except this time, it could be narrowed down to a desire to understand the enigma that was Sabine Wren. He longed to discover more of her mind, her soul, the hidden depths and unexplored corners of her being. Their partnership had the potential to become far more than a simple union of convenience.

She had been attracted to him, he had deduced that during their very first meeting on Krownest, a youthful fascination Eli Vanto had termed a ‘crush’ at the time, he seemed to recall. He had considered it only with an initial relief that he wouldn’t have to endure any typical non-human xenophobia from the young Mandalorian, but her sentiments had reassured him to the opposite. She was a true Mandalorian, through and through, and Mandalorians accepted anyone, regardless of origin, if their creed was true. The way of a true warrior, one he could respect. It had augured well, at least, for their union if she had some degree of attraction to him.

Now she was a grown woman, his vague feelings of protectiveness and detached interest had morphed into something else, something only fed by her defection, continuing defiance, and raw potential. She had the capability to be more than just a pawn under his hand, she could stand beside him as his equal. It would require…careful nurture of her, no doubt, repressed adolescent attraction to him, but he had little doubt it could be done.

But he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to catch her first.

Pulling his hand away from the mural, he rubbed together the fingers that had touched the paint meditatively as he turned away and strode to his desk. He had work to do.

* * *

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> gia'jida: betrothed
> 
> All translations from Coruscant Translator at MyRPG.org


	3. Atollon: Chimaera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Trials of the Darksaber, Sabine allows herself to remember Thrawn and the lessons he taught her before her defection, as she grapples with the decision to take up the Darksaber as Mandalore's leader.

Sabine ducked inside her cabin aboard the _Ghost_ with a sigh of relief. It had been a tough week, sleeping rough out in the wilderness of Atollon while she trained with Kanan, Ezra and Fenn Rau, but at last it was over. Kanan had judged her sufficiently competent with the blade… with the _Darksaber_ to allow them to return to base.

Even thinking of the legendary weapon was still enough to make her wince, let alone the feel of its heavy weight pressed against her hip. She didn’t want to feel its weight there, but she had little choice it seemed.

She wasn’t sure if it was madness or pure coincidence that she’d grabbed the hilt in Maul’s hovel on Dathomir. Kanan and Ezra would claim it was the Will of the Force, capitals included in their tone, but she hadn’t believed in such pretty and convenient concepts since… well, since she was forced to flee Mandalore.

Finding the Darksaber, suspecting it was only a matter of time before Kanan told Fenn Rau about it, and their plan to use it to unite the clans of Mandalore under the banner of the Rebellion, it had brought everything back; the hurt, the rage, the pain, the sheer, _aching_ helplessness. The defiance that had burned like fire, and the disillusionment when it had achieved nothing but her own exile. From everything she knew, everything she’d loved…at the time, she had thought it might be worth it, if she could just save her family but her family hadn’t wanted to be saved.

Even now, Sabine couldn’t pin it down: when her mother’s pride in Mandalore, its traditions, its blood-soaked history and their family’s place in it, had turned into pride in the Empire, in its secure, tyrannical grip that ultimately betrayed everything Clan Wren had ever truly stood for. Was it fear, like Kanan had suggested? Was her mother, cold, implacable Countess Wren, truly imprisoned by her own fear?

Sabine was too young to remember much of the Civil War that had torn Mandalore apart in the wake of the deposition of the Duchess’s pacifist government, her murder at the hands of an _aruetii_ and the very weapon she now bore, and the founding of the Empire. She’d been safely sequestered on Krownest, along with her infant brother and her father, while her mother fought on the front lines with the loyal vassals of Clan Wren. While nominally on the side of Death Watch and the traditionalist Mandalorian factions, her mother had turned against them in the last days of the war, fighting alongside the Nite Owls and Duchess Kryze’s sister, Lady Bo-Katan Kryze. Sabine knew she had supported her regency, until the Empire had taken over and demanded the loyalty of the Houses in return for clemency. The new puppet regime, presided over by Clan Saxon, had immediately ostracised their family for its ties to Death Watch, conveniently forgetting their own, and it had been left to the next generation to claw back what little standing they could.

 _‘Or would have, if I hadn’t left,’_ she thought wryly, reaching up to unbuckle her armour, laying the colourfully decorated pieces reverently to one side. Once she was clad only in her body glove, feet bare against the cold metal deck of the _Ghost_ , she knelt down and reached under her bunk for a small bundle.

When she’d run from Mandalore, she hadn’t had much time or room for keepsakes. Most of her possessions had remained at Krownest when she returned to the Academy, and what few she had would have only slowed her down anyway. It wasn’t the Mandalorian way to be too sentimental, too attached to the materialistic. She’d had her armour, passed down through the family line for five hundred years, her weapons; a gift from her parents after her acceptance into the Imperial Academy, and her skills. What more had she needed? It wasn’t the Mandalorian way.

Except she had taken two other things when she’d left Mandalore, her family… and _him_ far behind. They’d been small, easily concealed and carried with her, through her short foray into bounty hunting with Ketsu Onyo, joining the crew of the _Ghost_ and the Rebellion. As her fingers grazed the cloth bundle, she pulled it out, blindly undoing wrappings she’d left tied in place until they sprang open. Her fingers brushed the expensive, treated leatheris bracer inside, her fingertips idly tracing the curling metalwork pattern inlaid into the hide.

At first, she’d rationalised it as purely mercenary. Mandalorian betrothal gifts were meant to be easily carried and concealed, used as currency in emergencies, and so she had told herself she would sell Thrawn’s betrothal gift to her if the occasion ever called for it. But every time it might have helped, might have got her out of a tight spot, put food in her belly or even fuel in the _Ghost’s_ tanks… she never had.

Even more damning was the second object in the bundle. A small datacard was nestled inside the bracer. It had laid untouched for years after she left Mandalore, until her past had caught up with her… until Thrawn found her again, and she’d been forced to confess the truth to Hera. They’d tried to keep it secret, keep it strictly between them but Thrawn himself and their misadventure on Concord Dawn had put an end to that.

After Gar Saxon had gleefully and viciously divulged her connection, not only to the Empire but to Thrawn, she’d been forced to confess the truth to her family on the _Ghost_. To be fair to them, Zeb and Kanan had taken it about as well as could be expected. Ezra… less so, but for all his maturity and the power he wielded, he was still a child in many ways. Plus, she suspected his ill-concealed crush on her that he’d been nursing since he joined the _Ghost_ , wasn’t helping matters.

Never mind that she’d barely spent any time with her ‘betrothed’. Never mind that they were now on the opposite sides of a war, and the only option would be to kill or be killed. Never mind all the logical, sensible reasons she’d given and half-believed herself.

The truth was she’d had something of a crush on her husband-to-be ever since they’d first met, at their betrothal ceremony on Krownest, and she’d seen for herself what manner of man she was bound to.

Or so she’d thought, at the time.

She might have been young, but Sabine had never been so naïve not to know the Empire was ruthless. At the time, she’d rationalised it as justified, a measured response to a brutal galaxy divided by war, dissent, and corruption. She’d told herself it was necessary even, that the old, compassionate ways of the Republic weren’t enough to restore peace and prosperity to the galaxy. Then came the Duchess, her foolhardy, youthful attempt at proving her superiority to her peers and to the Empire, and dare she think it, but to **_him_** as well. Then they’d actually built it, tested it on her own people and she’d realised the truth of the Empire: its desire for power as an end in itself, an insatiable desire to dominate dressed up in the fancy rhetoric of unity and loyalty. She had felt the scales fall from her eyes at last, as she had realised she was instrumental in her own people’s enslavement.

And Thrawn had aided in that.

As if working on autopilot, Sabine’s hands inserted the datacard into her pad, tapping a rhythm into its casing with her fingertips as it loaded. A moment later, her screen lit up with the encrypted files on the card. There were only four.

Four letters, all from Thrawn to her during what should have been her final year at the Academy. The last was dated just before the first successful test of the Duchess.

As her fingers hovered over the datapad’s screen, Sabine’s eyes fell on the bracer lying beside her leg, half-obscured by the wrappings. The sight of its languidly curling, weaving design brought back memories she’d once thought firmly behind her.

* * *

_The celebrations for her betrothal went on long into the night. Clan Wren knew how to hold its own amongst the Mandalorian houses, but Sabine had quickly got bored of it. She had taken shelter in her favourite hideaway, glad to be out of the crush as below her vantage point, her family and its vassals drank tihaar, sang the old songs and danced wildly. Sabine enjoyed a good party, but unlike most Mandalorians, she knew when to call it a night._

_At least she wouldn’t be hitting the sparring mats with a hangover tomorrow._

_She hadn’t seen much of her gia’jida since their betrothal ceremony. They had dined under her parents’ watchful eye, then once the party really started, she’d lost track of him. She was half-convinced this party alone would be enough to send him scurrying back to his ship, Imperial nose firmly out of joint._

_She had underestimated him, it seemed._

_She felt his approach long before she saw him, turning her head so she could watch him out of the corner of her eye, tall, lithe and graceful in the shadows of her hiding place._

_“Had enough Mandalorian hospitality already, have you?” she called in the dark, softly teasing in a manner she wouldn’t have dared before._

_“I could ask you the same question, Sabine,” Thrawn replied, as she darted a glance at his face. She could detect no displeasure at her needling, just mild interest as he watched her intently, one hand held behind his back, the other holding a small case._

_“I enjoy a good party as much as the next girl,” Sabine shrugged, looking once more down at the party below her little balcony. “But sometimes I like to… catch my breath and simply observe from a distance.”_

_“It is the artist in you,” came the smooth reply, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as she sensed him move closer, joining her at the railing._

_Unconsciously, Sabine’s hand traced the betrothal tattoo on her left arm, idly dancing over the flaming circle imprinted in her skin. “When I was a child, I used to come up here all the time. I’d sneak out after bed to watch and listen whenever my parents had guests, or for the parties I was too young to attend,” she found herself confessing, unsure if it was wise but feeling like she had to say **something** to ease the tension she felt in his presence. “It wasn’t even so much the conversation I was interested in… all boring, grown-up stuff,” she huffed sarcastically, hearing the irony in her statement. Soon, boring, grown-up stuff would be her entire world, as she slowly but surely left the safe, innocent sanctity of her childhood far behind. “It was the people. The colours of their clothes, their armour, the history behind them, the way the light fell on jewellery or gilding… I’m sorry, I’m babbling.”_

_“Please, don’t apologise,” Thrawn waved her words aside as he lent his free hand on the railing of the balcony. “I find ‘babble’ can be surprisingly informative. What we speak of when we are most unconscious of our audience can be most illuminating. I told you, you’ve an artist’s soul and eye, it grants you powers of observation denied to other more… mundane minds. It is a trait worth nurturing.”_

_“Thank you, then,” Sabine replied, frustrated at the way her cheeks flamed at his praise, eloquently worded perhaps, but she didn’t get the feeling he was just trying to charm a young girl. Thrawn came across as the type of man who gave compliments only when they were deserved, in his opinion. “What do you see, when you look down at them?” she asked, curiously. In truth, she half-dreaded his answer; she’d been forming a largely positive opinion of him since their first meeting, but she knew what most Imperials thought of Mandalorians, and their traditions._

_She’d forgotten Thrawn was no run-of-the-mill Imperial._

_“I see a people known, and sometimes derided, for their exuberance,” the man beside her replied, gazing down at the milling crowds, raucous and vibrant as music and laughter rang out across the banquet hall. “Yet it is a key part of the whole, a flame that is both destructive and vital to the Mandalorian ethos. It is both your potential for destruction and the sheer lust for life you are born to possess. I see the weight of a history both of bloodshed and glory in battle, with both infamy and exaltation combined. I see both the seeds of fearlessness and the seed of decay that would let fear infect it. There are many paths ahead for the Mandalorians to consider, but I also see the choice has not yet been made between rebirth and destruction.”_

_Sabine stared at him, both struck and dazed by his oddly passionate, yet bleak assessment of her people. What did he mean? Seed of decay? A choice between rebirth and destruction? What was he talking about?_

_She saw Thrawn’s red eyes glance at her, a slight quirk to his lips as she realised he was amused at her visible confusion as she puzzled over his words. Meeting his gaze, she was shocked by how… open and unguarded it seemed, staring back at her frankly, with all the measuring consideration of a holo-chess grandmaster. She sensed her value and her potential was being weighed, but which end the scales would tip, she did not yet know._

_“Are you confused?” he asked._

_“Yes,” she replied, honestly. “But it’s only because I can only guess what you mean. And I’m guessing you know more than I do, more than you’re letting on with such cryptic riddles.”_

_“You share your people’s distaste for them, I see,” Thrawn chuckled, glancing away as Sabine drew herself up proudly._

_“Mandalorians prefer straight talk and honest words,” she replied coolly, but she sensed he wasn’t really trying to insult her, or her people. It was well-known Mandalorians were a blunt people. Why bother mincing words when a decent right hook would do instead?_

_“Ah, but even honesty can sometimes be used for dishonest ends,” Thrawn retorted as he straightened from the railing. “It is true, there is much I know that you do not. Some things you may never know, other things you may come to know in time and others you will learn all too soon.”_

_Sabine turned fully to face him, eyes narrowed and intent on his features, all the sharp, carved angles of his cheeks and forehead, the hair perfectly slicked back over his skull, the strength in the hand at the railing. He turned to face her in turn, with a slightly self-deprecating smile as his commlink chirruped._

_“Such as now,” he continued urbanely. “I didn’t come up here solely to bandy riddles and debate with you. I have been recalled to my ship for urgent reassignment to the Outer Rim, and I must depart immediately. I have already made my farewells to your parents. I didn’t wish to leave without also seeing you.”_

_“I see,” Sabine inhaled, glancing out once more over the party below. “I guess it’ll be a long time before you’re headed back this way again.”_

_“And you’ll be returning to Mandalore to resume your studies,” Thrawn replied. “It will be a long time before we are afforded the chance for private, personal conversation again but I wish to make a request of you, and to leave you with something.”_

_“Oh?” she asked, curious once more, her eyes darting to the case in Thrawn’s hand._

_“It is Mandalorian tradition for the prospective bridegroom to give a betrothal gift to his bride, is it not?” Thrawn continued, holding up the case in his hand. It was plain, unadorned wood, about the length of her forearm as Sabine took it from him gingerly. Opening it, she caught her breath._

_Inside, nestled on a protective lining, was a bracer of soft, tempered leatheris, inlaid with an intricate design. At first, it merely appeared to be a random design of long trailing curlicues and branching swirls, but Sabine’s sharp eye quickly discerned a design within the design. It was a strange creature, with long grasping legs that would wrap around her wrist, ending in two serpentine heads, their open, hissing maws criss-crossing just below her hand. In the gap between its swirling heads, stalked eyes winked beadily up at her in the dim light of the balcony._

_“It is a chimaera, a mythical creature from my people’s own legends,” Thrawn explained, as Sabine rested the box on the railing, slipping it onto her right arm as she tried to tie the laces single-handed. “May I?” he asked, extending a hand towards her own._

_Swallowing around a suddenly dry mouth, Sabine nodded wordlessly as Thrawn’s long, dextrous fingers glided lightly up at the surface of her forearm, tightening the bracer until it fit snugly against her body glove, until Sabine twisted her arm back over to admire its design. But Thrawn’s hand didn’t let go, lightly holding her arm in his hand as Sabine looked up at him, trembling slightly. This crush was getting out of hand._

_“Thank you,” Sabine forced out as she met his intense red eyes. “It wasn’t necessary, but I’ll wear it proudly.” It was a perfect example of a traditional Mandalorian betrothal gift, practical, lightweight and easily used as currency if necessary, but Thrawn had found a way to put his own stamp on her people’s customs. She was literally wearing a creature from Chiss mythology._

_“In my people’s ancient past, the chimaera symbolised the disparate parts of a person’s being and how they might yet work together to make a whole greater than the sum of its parts,” Thrawn explained, cocking his head at her as if she was an intriguing puzzle, his eyes warm. “I see such a puzzle in you, Sabine Wren. An artist’s soul but a warrior’s heart… two parts of yourself you must learn to reconcile.”_

_More riddles, but somewhere in all that there was a compliment floating about. Putting it aside, Sabine asked, as defiantly as she could as she met and held his gaze, fighting down her body’s reactions as his lips quirked again. “You had a request to make of me?”_

_“Indeed. My duties and your studies will make personal interaction difficult,” he continued urbanely, finally releasing her arm as he lowered his own to his side once more. “Yet I don’t wish to greet a stranger on our wedding day, with only this moment and our betrothal ceremony between us. Would you write to me, and permit me to write to you when my duties allow?”_

_“I think that would be acceptable,” Sabine nodded. “Although what I’d write about, I’m not sure.”_

_“Don’t worry yourself overly about that. I wish to know **you** , Sabine. Write me anything and everything in that curious mind of yours, and I will be content,” Thrawn replied, reaching for her hand once more. Clasping it, he bowed over it correctly, then brushed a kiss across the back of her hand. “Until we meet again, Sabine.”_

_Voice a little strained, Sabine could only smile and nod as he released her hand and walked away, leaving her, heart thundering and hand warm with the pressure of his lips, in the shadows._

* * *

It had been some time before Sabine had remembered her promise. With all the accompanying chaos of the first semester of her final Academy year, she’d barely had a moment to breathe, let alone recall her promise to Thrawn to write to him.

But eventually, she had. Her first letter was awkward, stilted and overly formal as she debated what to write, but she had included a sketch she’d done of the Academy buildings and grounds on a whim, one she had initially regretted after she sent it, but her impulsive action seemed to have pleased him, if his reply, some weeks later, had been any indication.

They had never spoken of anything so weighty as his duties, politics, or his cryptic insinuations from the night of their betrothal ceremony. Her second letter had been less awkward, more filled with the mundane, every day anecdotes of her life and studies, including the story of her altercation with that pretentious upstart that had questioned her value and skill as a female member of Clan Wren, and her subsequent victory over him on the sparring mats.

Opening that second reply from him, Sabine realised the changed tenor of the letter compared to his first. They had discussed art, her own work and her influences, but he had also made mention of her family’s status, Mandalorian politics and the Empire. It had felt oddly… like he was instructing her, however subtly. He’d also included some primers he had written for her on Cheunh, encouraging her to study the language so he might teach her himself when they next met.

That feeling of being taught and guided only intensified with her third letter. It had been the letter she wrote after starting to consider her final year project. All final year Academy cadets were required to submit an original piece of work, whether that be a design, a concept or a thesis on a particular topic, to prove their intellectual prowess in their chosen tracks. For all her skill as a fighter, Sabine had always been leaning towards a career as an engineer, preferably as a weapons system specialist. She’d been pondering what her final project might be, and had asked for Thrawn’s input.

His third reply, while still subtle and understated, had been blatantly more instructive, encouraging her to use her creative abilities to their fullest, while counselling her to think strategically, to gear her project towards the needs of the Empire to attract both attention and praise.

At the time, she thought only of the intellectual and engineering challenges of it all, not considering the broader implications as she began to conceive of a weapons system that could target and taken down entire armies. What better way to fight a battle than to ensure it was already over before it had begun? At first, she had struggled to find the key, the one element that would bring it all together but once again, and for the last time, Thrawn had helped her come to the right (or wrong) conclusion.

With lightly shaking fingers, Sabine opened up the fourth encrypted file, entering her codes as the datapad’s screen was suddenly covered in text.

It was the last letter she had received from him before her defection, before she’d learned that a prototype of the Duchess had been constructed and tested, before her family’s abandonment and she was forced to leave behind everything she had ever known and loved.

Like all his letters before, its tone was formal but warm, filled with the eloquent intelligence of a man used to command, but unafraid to take instruction from others where he was lacking, as well as to give it to enrich others. In her previous reply, she had posited her theory that there was more to art than aesthetically pleasing imagery and religious symbolism, and he had responded with his own agreement. What was more, he had responded with his own treatise on the art of war, and its place in strategic thinking, but where most of her lectures on the subject had seemed to be just irreconcilable babble, with very little in common with the realities of combat, Thrawn’s comments on the subject suddenly made abrupt sense.

Her eyes fell on one passage in particular, a fateful one as she skimmed through words that still haunted her dreams: _‘Tradition is not without its uses but all too often, it becomes entangled with complacency. Such sentiments are dangerous, no race, no creed, no tradition is without its fatal flaw, one which if allowed to grow too strong, will destroy it. In such cases, this complacency presents an opportunity. Complacency is a weakness, and weakness may be exploited. You must never be shy to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses, Sabine.’_

Thrawn’s words had planted a seed, one which wouldn’t stop growing in Sabine’s mind. With the added challenge, Sabine had been enthused to consider it, finding a way to turn her people’s traditions against themselves, symbolised by the very armour she wore, with all the history and ritual embedded in the beskar plates.

It wasn’t until she discovered the Empire was not only considering her theories, but had implemented them and tested their prototype successfully that Sabine realised her error. And the full reality of the Empire and the methods they would use to inspire fear and submission.

She hadn’t hesitated. She had spoken out, but she was shunned and disowned by her family, forced to flee Mandalore with nothing but her armour, her weapons and the few possessions she could carry with her. Including the datacard and the bracer. But not before she had destroyed the prototype, taking most of the experimental lab building with it, deleting her research and the blueprints for the weapon.

Glancing over his missives now, Sabine wondered if Thrawn had been guiding her towards creating the Duchess even then. Or something of that scale, if he truly believed she had more potential than even her Academy instructors thought she did. Reading his letters now, analysing every word, every phrase, she could see it now. The nickname he’d given her in the second letter, and begun each subsequent letter with, might imply he simply encouraged a personal intimacy in anticipation of their future wedding day. It would be easy to discount his letters as simply a detached, formal courtship designed to ensure their future union would be cordial, at least.

But Sabine had long suspected otherwise. Coupled with his enigmatic remarks after their betrothal ceremony, she realised now he was guiding her, but towards what? Towards ensuring Mandalorian submission to Imperial rule through fear and oppression? Or did he have some kind of agenda of his own?

To an outside observer, Thrawn appeared the epitome of a loyal, dedicated Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy. His attempts to run them to ground, to discover the whereabouts of their base, certainly seemed to support that observation. But something, some instinct in her gut whispered that Thrawn was playing a longer game than that.

Sabine had long learned to trust her gut.

Her eyes fell again on the datapad’s screen, roving blindly over words she knew by heart. _‘You must never be shy to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses…’_

What was the Empire’s weakness? Its size? Its ruthlessness? Its uniformity? Too obvious, and too easily turned into a strength in the hands of talented strategists like Thrawn. But men like Thrawn were few and far between.

No, its weakness lay in its readiness to dismiss and discount the traditions and cultures of its subjects in favour of some nascent, higher ideal that barely existed. The Empire believed Mandalore was subjugated to its rule and its culture, but they underestimated how deeply the lifeblood of history and tradition flowed through their veins just as surely as it was forged into their armour.

The Rebellion could use that. **_She_** could use that, if she was willing to take up the Darksaber and all it entailed, and truly _lead_ her people. By appealing to their history, to their recollection of who they once were, she could help them see what they could be again by taking a stand against the collective oppression and homogenisation of the Empire.

Unity had its place, but not at the expense of culture, history, and tradition.

Shutting her datapad down, Sabine extracted the datacard, weighing it in her hand. For a moment, she eyed it and the bracer on her lap. A part of her wanted to throw them both away, but she didn’t.

It was only practical, after all. She could use it for barter if the need ever arose and Mandalorians were nothing if not practical, she told herself firmly.

After another moment, she packed the datacard away, before slipping her wrist into the bracer, fastening it with her other hand. It still fitted perfectly, as she stared down at its weaving, shining chimaera glaring balefully up at her, before she reached once more for her armour. _The disparate parts of the whole…_ Thrawn’s voice, deep and smooth, seemed to echo in her mind as she considered the conflicting parts of herself: Rebel, Bounty Hunter, Cadet, Mandalorian, Warrior, Artist, Woman… so many sides of her, and not everything seemed to fit. She was like a puzzle with too many jagged pieces, with no clear-cut pattern to the chaos. But perhaps that was the point: chaos could be beautiful and it could be deadly if used strategically. _‘An artist’s soul but a warrior’s heart…’_

Once she was again encased in her armour, she reached for the Darksaber, hefting it in her hand one last time before she reached back and clipped it to the loop of her belt.

It was time she returned to Krownest. To remind her family, and her people, of who they truly were and what they could become once more.

* * *

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> aruetii: foreigner/outsider
> 
> gia'jida: betrothed


	4. Krownest: The Way of Mandalore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Universe Alteration - Legacy of Mandalore.
> 
> Sabine's return to Mandalore doesn't go as planned and once again, she comes face to face with her past as destiny beckons in the form of a Chiss Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy.

Sabine raised her head, groaning as her headache made itself known with **_extreme_** prejudice. It literally felt like a pair of rancors were having a fistfight inside her skull, crashing from one side to the other. Most of her right side was aching dully, but felt cool, as she dimly concluded she must have some kind of bacta patch attached to her skin. She vaguely recalled the starboard control console blowing up next to her arm…

The crash!

Sabine would have sat bolt upright, with all the drama her sudden return to full consciousness warranted, but her body steadfastly refused, throbbing violently with sudden pain as her head spun at the slightest movement, and she became aware of a hand gently pushing her back onto whatever she was lying on.

“Be still, Sabine. You are still recovering from your wounds,” a familiar voice chided her from somewhere to her left. It was a voice Sabine could never forget, having heard it from her earliest years in every tone imaginable: loving, teasing, warm, and more recently, cold, scolding, and angry. Her mother, Countess Ursa Wren.

That must mean she was in her parents’ ancestral home on Krownest. She recalled the crash; the _Phantom II_ being shot down by House Wren commandos. Hera was going to kill them…that was the second time they’d lost the _Phantom_ , after that debacle on Yarma.

Which begged the question, where were her friends? She recalled entering Krownest’s atmosphere, sending out a transmission announcing their presence and requesting permission to land, then nothing but explosions and the gut-clenching drag of gravity on her stomach as the ship’s internal inertia systems failed. They must have crashed.

“M-my friends?” she managed to croak out defiantly, lying back as she forced her eyes open to be greeted by the sight of her mother sat by her bedside. She looked older than she remembered, dark grey streaks peppering hair Sabine remembering being as dark as night, once upon a time. There were deep lines in her face, but she still held herself with all the bone-stubborn pride she remembered from childhood.

Ursa Wren’s eyes narrowed. “You mean the rebels?” she sniffed contemptuously. “Missing, presumed dead. Your brother is leading the search parties, do not concern yourself with them.”

Even injured and only half-awake, Sabine still mustered up every iota of defiance and irritation she could command. “Since they’re my friends, I very much will concern myself with them,” she snapped, as Ursa scowled down at her, her hand still against Sabine’s shoulder.

“Rest, Sabine,” Ursa admonished her a second time. “You cannot do anything as you are. You sustained a head wound and multiple fractures to the right side of your body. Just rest and let the bacta do its work.”

Mulishly, Sabine subsided. Her head was still aching, her body running hot from the bacta healing the injuries on her right side, and she wouldn’t be much use to Kanan, Ezra, Chopper, and Rau until she was a little more recovered. She was safe enough, at least, for now. She had a feeling Ursa wouldn’t turn her in to the Empire just yet. As fugitive Jedi and a former Protector, convicted of treason in absentia, the others didn’t have the same advantage.

She dimly felt Ursa’s hand leave her shoulder, and her mother speaking in hushed Mando’a to what she guessed was a medical droid, before her body was flooded by a sedative, her pain easing as she let herself drift away, determined to heal as quickly as possible so she could get herself out of this mess.

* * *

Countess Wren sat by her daughter’s bedside as the medical droid bustled around them, increasing the dosage of pain meds and sedative to ease her daughter’s recovery while the bacta did its work. It wasn’t the typical Mandalorian way, but sometimes tradition had to give way to expediency. Despite her reputation for staunch traditionalism, if it was one thing Ursa had come to learn since her youth as a political idealist, sometimes pragmatism must win the day.

Sabine would need all the strength she could muster for the coming days.

As her daughter slept, Ursa sat and watched her. She hadn’t watched her daughter sleep since… well before her disastrous time at the Academy. She’d just been a girl then, barely hitting puberty…now she was a woman, and Ursa hadn’t been there to see most of it.

She didn’t regret exiling and disowning Sabine. As harsh as it had been, and it had, Ursa knew it, accepted it even; it had been the only way to protect her. Not even the girl’s betrothal to an Imperial officer would have stopped them from hauling Sabine off to face punishment and ‘reconditioning’ until she bent to their will, and that was something Clan Wren couldn’t afford.

What was more, it was simply something Ursa Wren couldn’t face, the thought of Sabine, her first-born and the future of Clan Wren, strapped into a torture chair until even her Mandalorian toughness broke down. It was the mother, and not the Mandalorian, within her that guided her actions then.

Truthfully, Ursa had never expected to hear from Commander, now Grand Admiral, Thrawn again once Sabine was exiled. But a year after, he had contacted her discreetly and asked to meet.

What he had told her at that meeting changed everything.

After that, Ursa had tried to find her daughter but Sabine was both too proud and too well-trained to be so easily found. She had disappeared, for nearly three years before the first rumours began to reach her that a Mandalorian in brightly painted armour and a knack for explosives was working for a Rebel cell. Even now, Ursa didn’t know if she admired her daughter’s resourcefulness and conviction or wanted to shake some sense into her for her stupidity at getting mixed up with those idealistic idiots.

To her surprise, Thrawn hadn’t been discomfited by the revelation of Sabine’s involvement with the Rebels. She rather suspected he was fully aware of it and had even planned accordingly. She knew Thrawn had an even greater plan than his appearance as a dutifully loyal servant of the Empire suggested. She knew Sabine was a key part of that plan, not just his but the shadowy allies who stood beside him.

She could only hope her daughter would one day forgive her for this. No, that wasn’t quite right…One day, if she became the leader she was destined to be, that Thrawn believed she would, and the weapon she had carried at her hip suggested she was taking her first steps towards… then she would **_understand_** why Ursa had done what she’d done. As a mother, she hoped for her daughter’s forgiveness… as a leader and a ruler of her clan, she would accept understanding from the woman who looked destined to lead Mandalore into the future. She knew what her daughter hoped to achieve by returning to her ancestral home but allying the Mandalorians with the ragtag band of Rebel cells that dared call themselves an ‘Alliance’… would only bring about Mandalore’s destruction. But Thrawn had presented a third option… and it was one Ursa now took.

Typing a code into the vambrace on her wrist, Ursa brought it to her mouth. “Contact Grand Admiral Thrawn and inform him the phoenix has come home… and that as expected, things have become even more complicated. I will expect him soon.”

Lowering her wrist as the code was relayed and transmitted on a highly encrypted, deep-space signal, Ursa gazed on her sleeping daughter in pensive silence as she waited for the next move in the game. As her eyes gazed at the leather bracer on Sabine’s forearm, she felt that hope, the hope of a mother, rise as she considered what it might mean, for Sabine to have kept such a valuable, and useful, token if she believed her betrothal meaningless.

Silently, she sat and watched, until news came of an imminent arrival and she left to ensure preparations while her daughter slept on in her childhood bed.

* * *

When Sabine next awoke, it was nearly sunset, the sun’s rays painting the walls of her childhood bedchamber a bright, vivid orange as she slowly sat up in bed. Mentally, she took a quick inventory as she registered the lack of pain in her head and right side. Physically, she felt as well as ever which meant the bacta had obviously done its work, although she still felt a little sluggish, which she guessed meant that she hadn’t dreamed the sedative just before she lost consciousness.

As she gingerly swung her legs around and out of bed, she noted wryly that all her weapons had been taken from her; her blasters, her vibroknife, her vambraces, her jetpack, and the Darksaber. Even her armour had been stripped away, although she could see it nestled away beside the large chest that had once stored her clothes. The only thing that hadn’t been taken from her was Thrawn’s betrothal gift, revealed from its hiding place beneath her vambraces. For a moment, she considered it, considered its twisting, branching design before she shook herself and tentatively tried her feet.

Her balance held, the sluggishness in her limbs beginning to lift a little now she was mobile. Retrieving her armour, Sabine dressed in it quickly, feeling its hard, unyielding embrace like a physical comfort, a blanket of security enfolding her as she breathed a sigh of relief. Despite her lack of weapons, she felt ready for whatever came next, so long as she had her armour.

For a moment, she sat on her bed as she considered her helmet, debating whether to wear it or not, as her eyes drifted from the colourful designs she’d painstakingly painted on its planes, and to the mural she and her father had painted on her bedroom wall together when she was a child.

It depicted heroes from Mandalore’s past, interspersed with landscapes from Krownest and the Sundari plains as they had been before they were destroyed by endless wars; and flora and fauna of Krownest. She wasn’t as skilled then as she was now, but her father had been patient and kind, guiding her childish, inexperienced hands while encouraging her creativity as her eyes traced the uneven, sometimes inexplicably curving lines of her first forays into art.

 _‘So much has changed,’_ she thought sadly, wondering where her father was now. As the door of her bedchamber opened, Sabine looked up as her eyes widened. _‘Some things have changed a **lot**.’_

At the threshold of her room stood her brother, tall and strong in familiar armour, eyes narrowed at Sabine. “Welcome home, big sister.”

He wore the armour of an Imperial Mandalorian Supercommando, and Sabine wanted to spit at the sight of it as it brought back memories of Concord Dawn and the massacre of the Protectors. “How can you wear that armour, Tristan? How could you join them?” she demanded unthinkingly, as then she mentally flinched. _‘Way to go with the diplomacy there, Sabine!’_

Tristan’s eyes, so like hers and the rest of her family’s, flickered even as his face hardened. “Mother wants to speak with you,” he told her coldly, turning his back and pausing only to throw over his shoulder, “You shouldn’t have come back, Sabine.”

“Thanks,” Sabine muttered sullenly, feeling her stomach sink at her brother’s coldness towards her. Tucking her helmet under her arm, Sabine followed her brother out of her childhood room and down the corridor.

They walked in silence as Sabine tried not to let memories of her childhood wash over her as they walked through silent halls she’d ran and played in as a child. “You changed your hair again,” her brother suddenly observed, almost making her jump at the abruptness of the comment.

Flicking a white and purple ombre lock from her face, Sabine shrugged. “You know me,” she replied as he shrugged.

“Do I?” he asked, as Sabine winced.

“Ouch,” she muttered to herself, as Tristan turned to glance at her over his shoulder.

“It’s been five years, Sabine,” he told her coolly. “Did you really expect to just turn up and there’d be a big family reunion?” he asked, a tinge of scorn in his tone. His height wasn’t the only thing about her brother that had changed, it seemed.

“No, I-,” she trailed off, forcing herself not to turn into the abandoned little girl that she’d once been. She wasn’t here for this. “I’m not here for that. You all made your feelings about me quite clear. I’m here to speak to Countess Wren on behalf of the Rebellion, nothing more.”

Tristan’s face hardened, and he looked away. “Whatever. I can’t vouch for how **_that_** bit of news will be greeted,” he replied as Sabine sighed and shrugged.

“Story of my life when it comes to Mother and Father,” she muttered as Tristan spun to face her with ill-concealed irritation and anger in his eyes.

“Father isn’t here. He’s being held captive on Mandalore as a hostage because of **_your_** actions,” he spat at her as Sabine stopped and stared at him, mouth agape. “To ensure Clan Wren’s compliance with Saxon and the Empire. I serve him to protect us from the other ruling Houses and regain some status… all because of you and what you did. So, don’t you dare come back after five years and act like you’re the only injured party here!”

And with that, Tristan turned on his heel and marched off as Sabine watched, uneasy and feeling guilty, and hating that she did. **_They_** had abandoned **_her_** , not the other way around… but they were still paying the price for it in ways she was ignorant of. A prison of their own making, had Kanan called it? Well, it looked like it was forged from durasteel. Sabine honestly didn’t know how she was going to convince them to side with her instead of the Empire, Darksaber or not.

“My companions? Where are they?” Sabine asked, deciding it was safer to change the subject than risk getting into a fight with her brother.

“Down below, in the cells. Mother ordered them kept bound and sedated,” Tristan replied readily enough, as they resumed their walk towards the audience chamber. Tucking that information away for future use, Sabine knew she needed to talk to her mother first before she had a chance of securing their release.

Apart from anything, even as a good a fighter as she was, she had no chance of freeing them by force in a stronghold filled with Clan Wren commandos. They weren’t run of the mill Imperial Stormtroopers that were easy to confuse and misdirect, and it would only work against her even if it grated on her pride and worry for them to leave them imprisoned.

“They are unharmed?” she asked, as Tristan scoffed.

“A few minor injuries,” he said. “They should’ve known better than to fight back against Mandalorians, Jedi or not.”

Sabine huffed. “I wouldn’t underestimate them, Tristan,” she admonished him gently. “The Jedi won the Mandalorian Wars for a reason,” she added, thinking of her training with Kanan. Truthfully, if she hadn’t caught him off-guard with her outburst, goaded or not, she wasn’t sure she could beat him in a fight, even with all her skills and tricks.

Tristan didn’t reply, and the pair walked in silence until they reached the audience chamber, the doors guarded by two Clan Wren commandos, their unnaturally pale helmets gazing at them impassively. Another sign of Clan Wren’s disgrace, if their usual Clan colours were denied them, as Sabine felt her stomach churn.

Tristan paused, glancing towards her as he reached out a hand to her, clasping her arm in a warrior’s greeting. “I…am glad to see you’re still alive,” he admitted quietly, as Sabine smiled softly. Her brother was still in there somewhere.

Then the doors opened, and Sabine walked in to face her mother and the ghosts of the past alone.

Countess Ursa Wren sat, resplendent in her yellow and silver armour, on the ancestral seat of Clan Wren, looking down on her daughter as Sabine strode, straight-backed and proud, towards her.

The hall was empty of guards, at least, so they could speak openly but Sabine had no doubt that they weren’t far away. Her mother was a tough, implacable warrior, but now so was Sabine. Even if she had no intention of fighting her own mother.

On the arm of Ursa’s seat laid the Darksaber. Ursa’s gauntleted hand was almost protectively curled over it, as she narrowly watched Sabine approach.

“Mother, we need to talk,” Sabine began, bluntly. Ursa Wren had always preferred straightforward and blunt to the intricacies of polite diplomacy.

“I can see that,” Ursa conceded, picking up the Darksaber and hefting the hilt in her hand as she took her eyes off her daughter to scrutinise it.

“Firstly, I ask that you free my friends. They’re no danger to you,” Sabine began coolly. “We only want to talk; we didn’t come here to fight.”

“What did you think would happen here, Sabine?” Countess Wren demanded, her voice glacial and precise, the tones of the ruling matriarch of Clan Wren, not her mother. “That you’d be welcomed with open arms? You’re wanted by the Empire!”

Fine, Sabine could play that game too.

“I know but I’m part of the Rebellion now,” she asserted, stepping forward as Ursa simply eyed her with a cold, uncommunicative look. “Please hear what I have to say.”

“Very well, but your friends will remain in the cells. Their wounds have been tended to,” the Countess assured her, as Sabine inhaled and nodded. It was the best she was going to get, for the time being. She knew her mother too well not to know when not to push. “They will bring the Empire down on all of us if we’re not careful.”

“Only if they find out we were here,” Sabine contested. “Which they won’t.”

“You think the Darksaber will protect you?” Ursa scoffed. “It won’t. It’s only a symbol-,”

“A symbol that once united all of Mandalore under its blade,” Sabine replied firmly. “It can do so again. If we stand together now-,”

“Stand together?” Ursa repeated incredulously. “Sabine, it’s everything I can do to keep the other Clans from destroying us because of what you did!”

Righteous anger flashed through Sabine as her hands curled into fists. “I didn’t know the Empire would use the weapon I designed against our people!” she protested vehemently, before some of her fire dimmed and she slumped her proud shoulders as she added, “But you don’t believe me, do you?”

“Even if I did, it wouldn’t change all the other ruling Houses from seeing you as a traitor!” Ursa countered fiercely, before she sighed and softened her proud bearing for a moment, her eyes thawing just a little. “Why did you come back, Sabine?”

Sabine stayed quiet, trying not to wilt under the unexpected warmth as her mother, not the Countess Wren, gazed on her now with sad eyes. “Why didn’t you try to find me?” she asked in turn, as Ursa’s eyes flashed.

“Find you? Sabine, when you ran away, it saved you!” she replied fiercely, rising from her seat as Sabine started. “Don’t you understand? Coming back here has put you in danger, danger I can no longer protect you from, not as long as you hold this blade.”

“What d’you mean?” Sabine asked, brows furrowed as unease began to churn in her gut. “Are you going to turn me in to the Empire?”

“Not the Empire,” Ursa replied, as anger exploded in Sabine’s veins and, throwing caution to the winds, she shouted back.

“How could you align with the Empire?! After everything they’ve done to our people, after what they made me do?” she demanded, as Ursa’s eyes hardened.

“Do you think I didn’t try to stop it?” she snapped back, still calm and controlled as Sabine trembled with rage at the foot of the dais. “There was nothing I could do, Sabine. As a ruler, I must think with more than just my ideals. I must do what is best for my people, as you will come to learn if you continue to hold that blade… Mandalore was on its knees before the Emperor. After he put Saxon in power, we had a choice,” her voice softened a little, as Sabine realised with a start that she was speaking to her as an equal now, not her daughter. From one leader to another. “Side with him or Clan Wren would be destroyed…”

Sabine wilted at that admission from her usually proud, taciturn mother, as she inhaled through tight bands around her chest. “Father…” she trailed off, thinking of Alrich Wren and what Tristan had said of him.

“He’s still alive,” Ursa assured her, a spark of tenderness in her eyes as she looked on Sabine, her voice a little sad as she spoke of her long absent husband. “But if Clan Wren acts against the Empire, he’ll be killed.”

Sabine sighed, realising for the first time the true extent of the quagmire Ursa Wren had navigated since the founding of the Empire, and all to protect her family and their people. Clan Viszla had fallen during the Clone Wars, leaving Clan Wren the ruling clan of their House. They alone would carry the flame of their traditions but how could they do that if they were wiped out as Clan Viszla was?

“But that’s why you must ally with the Rebel Alliance,” Sabine began quietly, but strongly as she met her mother’s eye with a steady gaze. “We can free him, Mother. And together, with the Darksaber, we can free Mandalore from the Empire’s oppression!”

“And your father called me stubborn,” Ursa retorted, with a shade of affection and exasperation as she stepped down from the dais and reached for Sabine’s hands. “Now I see it in you,” she told her gently, as Sabine stayed quiet and simply listened. “The warrior you’ve become. Not the one I’d hoped, but still…”

“Well, I am your daughter. How could I be anything less?” Sabine asked as Ursa chuckled a little.

“That is true. Once, I believed you immature and selfish,” she admitted, as she pressed the Darksaber into Sabine’s hands. “But now I see the leader Mandalore needs.”

“You’ll help the Rebellion?” Sabine asked, suspicious that she was agreeing so… well, easily. Ursa raised sad but resigned eyes to Sabine, as her stomach dropped like a stone and she felt a chill race over her. “Mother, what have you done?”

“I am sorry, Sabine,” Ursa breathed, reaching out a hand and cupping Sabine’s cheek. “I know you believe I only care for power and politics, but everything I do has always been for my family. One day, you will understand.”

Sabine wrenched herself away from her mother’s hand, grasping the Darksaber tightly as she ignited it, whirling to face the door to the audience chamber as it opened to reveal her brother escorting a chillingly familiar figure in Imperial dress whites, blue-black hair immaculately combed, red eyes intent and cool as they stared at nothing but Sabine.

And her battle-ready stance as she held the Darksaber aloft in one of the poses Kanan had taught her.

“Greetings Countess Wren,” Grand Admiral Thrawn said smoothly, those cultured, lilting tones setting Sabine’s teeth on edge even as a shiver rippled down her spine. Then he looked at her and that shiver threatened to go to her knees even as she bared her teeth at him. “Greetings, _gia’jida_. It is a pleasure to meet you again in person at last, Sabine.”

Not caring to reply, Sabine looked at her mother and brother with betrayal in her eyes. “You said you wouldn’t turn me in to the Empire!”

“Not to the Empire,” Ursa replied. “But to your _gia’jida_? You made a vow, Sabine, and you are of age to fulfil that vow now.”

“You can’t be serious!” Sabine exploded, backing away from them all as she raised the Darksaber higher. Her eyes darted from her mother to Thrawn and back again like a cornered animal. “I’m a Rebel,” she said proudly, raising her chin as Thrawn watched her with amusement.

“Sabine, there are things you don’t know,” Ursa replied, trying to calm her daughter but Thrawn interrupted with a cool, impersonal tone.

“Now is not the time for that discussion, Countess Wren,” he told her, as Sabine stared at him. “Gar Saxon has been informed of Sabine and her allies’ presence here. He will be on his way to take them into custody and I rather suspect, from the presence of that blade alone, that is not something you wish to happen?”

“No, no you are right,” Countess Wren conceded, with a defeated sigh, before she fixed her daughter with a steely glare. “Sabine, stop being ridiculous. You are surrounded by cortosis and beskar-laced walls and windows, designed by our ancestors to repel Jedi attack. Scores of Clan Wren’s forces surround the stronghold. You cannot escape and it is past time to honour your vow.”

“Never,” Sabine growled as she stared down her mother. “I will never bow to the Empire again. I’ll die first.”

“And take Clan Wren with you?” Thrawn asked, drawing Sabine’s gaze as she stared at him. “What of your other family, your Jedi friends and the traitor Fenn Rau? Will you take them with you?”

Sabine hesitated and like the strategist he was, Thrawn seized on that moment. “Saxon will not hesitate to destroy Clan Wren once he has you in custody. Your friends will die too.”

“Why do you care? Isn’t your job meant to be hunting us down?” she demanded angrily as Thrawn inclined his head.

“It is,” he conceded, with a slight curl of his impassive lips. “But as your mother said, there is much you do not know, and it is not yet time to learn. Time is running short for us to leave here as husband and wife, with my name protecting Clan Wren from Saxon’s interference.”

“And my friends?” Sabine scoffed; sure, he was bluffing.

But Thrawn simply met her gaze steadily, holding it as he added, “I will guarantee their opportunity to escape, as they have so many times before. Beyond that, the Jedi and Rau are no longer my concern.”

Sabine didn’t lower the Darksaber but inwardly, her mind raced. What her mother had said was true, she was surrounded, in a building built to withstand lightsabers, even the Darksaber, and chances of escape were slim. Saxon was coming, it seemed, and for some inconceivable reason, Thrawn was not only offering his protection to her family, but also to look the other way so her friends could escape.

Why? She didn’t know, couldn’t fathom why and how, as her eyes flitted between her mother and Thrawn, still standing so relaxed and coolly controlled in front of her.

“It is time, Sabine,” Thrawn said, with just an edge of warmth in his voice as he held out a hand. “Make your choice. Death for yourself and those you love, or a chance for you all.”

“And submit to the Empire!?” Sabine hissed; eyes narrowed.

To her shock, Thrawn shook his head. “Not to the Empire. The Empire would have Saxon imprison you and force you to rebuild the Duchess, and then make an example of Mandalore to the galaxy. The Rebellion is too disjointed and myopic to succeed, the government it advocates a dusty failure long in need of burial. There is a third path, Sabine. And I will show it to you but you must first make your choice,” he told her, holding her gaze as he lowered his hand and walked towards her, unconcerned by the blade she levelled at his throat. He stepped close, so close they would be near enough to kiss if a shimmering blade of black and white energy didn’t stand between them. “Death… or a chance to live and find that third path. What is it to be?”

Sabine’s mind raced as she stared up into those red eyes that had entranced her the very first moment they met. Every iota of her being wanted to resist, to fight, but she knew they were surrounded and outnumbered. And if they couldn’t escape, not only they, but her mother, father, brother, and the entire Clan would pay the price as well.

She couldn’t countenance that. If they were still alive, there was hope. She could escape, she would escape…

And more importantly, Kanan, Ezra, Chopper, and Rau would escape too.

Sabine met Thrawn’s eyes steadily, unblinking in her intensity. She didn’t trust Imperial officers as far as she could throw them, but… she would trust one thing. “Give me your word you will protect my family and let my friends go,” she demanded fiercely, eyes burning as she stared up at him. She’d grown a little but not much since they last met when she was sixteen. He still towered above her, his body dwarfing hers in height and breadth, but she held her ground, staring him down as she would any opponent as the corner of his lips quirked in that tiny approximation of a smile she recalled from their one and only physical meeting, during their betrothal ceremony.

 _“Ch’ah bun vah ch’eo babes, Sabine bah Han’ci Csahut, veah ch’a visot ch’etecerci vim ror to rin’hi bah ch’eo tut’ut csei Ch’ah tisut to vasu’as vim isr vah nah ch’it nun’ah csarcican’t,”_ he told her intently, his voice as low and intimate as a lover’s as Sabine trembled unwillingly, scowling fiercely as a part of her wished she didn’t understand what he said, didn’t believe that he was promising. Untrustworthy Imperial he might be, but Thrawn was also a warrior, and he was bound by a code of honour. A different code perhaps, than the one Sabine had lived by, but when he gave his word, he was bound to it. Especially one given in his mother tongue, the language of his people that he had never left behind. Yet another mystery to add to the walking enigma that was Mitth’raw’nuruodo.

Thrawn’s vow rang in her ears, as her mind slowly translated that musical language, she’d heard for the first time in years a few months ago. _“I give you my vow, Sabine of Clan Wren, as a fellow warrior and on the blood of my people that I speak the truth and bear you no ill will,”_

Her eyes searched his, her heart raced, and her blood pounded with the urge to fight but… now was not the time. _“Bu'nas'a gar, Mitth'raw'nuorodo! Bu'nas'a gar at haran meh gar sarcina ibic danija!”_ she hissed under her breath as satisfaction flared in Thrawn’s blood-red eyes. Slowly, she lowered her blade until it was no longer in danger of cutting the Chiss’s throat, and then with a flick of her fingers, it deactivated as the blade receded into the hilt.

“You will have no cause to curse me, _euhn manka vit_ ,” he told her softly as she reached back and attached the hilt to her belt, conscious of her mother and brother’s eyes watching them with intrigued if confused eyes.

Sabine closed her eyes as Thrawn raised his hand once more, offering it to her. _‘Forgive me, Hera, Kanan, Zeb, Ezra… forgive me,’_ she thought as she opened her eyes and placed her arm, the one enclosed in the bracer he had gifted her after their betrothal. Their hands clasped each other’s arms in a warrior’s clasp, as she met his gaze steadily. “I am ready,” she said, simply and quietly, yet her words echoed around the room.

Mandalorian marriages were simple affairs. They only required a simple exchange of a single statement, a declaration of both intent and a vow to one another. While wedding parties could be far grander affairs, and they tended to be with Mandalorians, the marriage itself could be carried out at once, with no officiants, no registers, no one to answer to.

So Sabine stood in her armour, the Darksaber at her hip, in the audience chamber of her ancestral home, drenched in the warmth and radiance of the sun as it set below the horizon, as she recited the marriage vow as Thrawn did the same in flawless, if slightly accented, Mando’a.

 _“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde,”_ they recited as one, steadily and without inflection as her mother and brother watched on. Tears pricked her eyes, but she grimly, defiantly held them back. This was not what she had once imagined her wedding day to be; it should have been a loud, raucous, vigorous affair, the ancestral halls of Clan Wren’s stronghold filled to the rafters with her family and friends, _tihaar_ flowing freely as they toasted the addition of a new warrior to the Clan and the foundation of its future in her and her new husband, who would one day rule beside her over Clan Wren and House Viszla. She should have been happy and content, dancing with her brother and father, and finally speaking with her mother as an equal as she initiated her new husband into the Way of Mandalore.

But it wasn’t to be. Instead, only her mother and brother looked on, her father was a hostage on Mandalore, her other family were imprisoned below and she, formerly an exile and a wanted fugitive, had been backed into a corner on some vague promise of protection for those she loved and that there something more going on than she understood.

But she had said the words, and they were as binding as any warrior’s vow. She had blushed through her tears as the phrase, _‘mhi ba'juri verde,_ ’ left her lips. They most certainly would **_not_** be raising any warriors, thank you very much. Not if she had anything to say about it.

Feeling Thrawn’s amused gaze on her face, Sabine met it once more, refusing to give in to either despair or mortification as the warrior she was. Agreed to this insanity, she might have, but she would find a way to escape and return to the Rebels and her friends. She would find a way to free her family from the Empire’s grip, even her treacherous mother, and then she would find a way to rid herself of her new ‘husband’ once and for all.

That was a second vow she made, to herself and herself alone, as Thrawn’s hand tightened around hers, and his eyes, intense and fierce, stared down into her own. She stared back with all the fire and durasteel she could summon. She would not break, he would not break her, no matter what he did.

Whatever girlish infatuation she might have once felt, whatever flutterings of illogical attraction that she might have entertained once upon a time, she pushed them all aside. Joined they might be, by blood and by bond now, as they reached the end of the road they had walked since their betrothal ceremony five years ago, but she wouldn’t let him use her to enslave her people any further to the Empire’s cause.

It would end in his death and her freedom, by her own hand, as his right as a warrior, enemy or not. This was the Way of Mandalore, and Thrawn was going to learn that the hard way, all too soon.

* * *

_To be continued in ‘A Matter of Taste’._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Gia'jida: betrothed
> 
> “Ch’ah bun vah ch’eo babes, Sabine bah Han’ci Csahut, veah ch’a visot ch’etecerci vim ror to rin’hi bah ch’eo tut’ut csei Ch’ah tisut to vasu’as vim isr vah nah ch’it nun’ah csarcican’t,": I give you my vow, Sabine of Clan Wren, as a fellow warrior and on the blood of my people that I speak the truth and bear you no ill will
> 
> Bu'nas'a gar, Mitth'raw'nuorodo! Bu'nas'a gar at haran meh gar sarcina ibic danija!”: Damn you, Mitth'raw'nuorodo! Damn you to hell if you betray this vow!
> 
> “Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde,”: "We are one when together, we are one when parted, we share all, we will raise warriors."
> 
> All translations from Coruscant Translator at MyRPG.org
> 
> A Matter of Taste will be a little longer in the making. I'm going to work on 'Episode II: Shield of the Jedi' for a few weeks before I update this series again.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
> gia'jida: betrothed
> 
> "Ch'ah cart van sir vah, Sabine. Cseah csarcican't cart nan'eah vah tuzir vor, nan'eah vah tuzir vil cat ch'ah, euhn manka vit": I am coming for you, Sabine. There will be nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide from me, little manka cat.
> 
> Translations for Mando'a and Cheunh from Coruscant Translator at MyRPG.org


End file.
